


can't get you out of my head

by starkly



Series: you don't have to do this alone [18]
Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game)
Genre: Bodyswap, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 13:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13435713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkly/pseuds/starkly
Summary: Amora's magic accidentally makes Rhodey and Tony swap bodies. Tony misses a lunch date with Pepper. Everyone on campus apparently loves Rhodey.It's just a normal day at Avengers Academy.





	can't get you out of my head

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for NaNoWriMo 2017 and posted at [dailyironfamily](http://dailyironfamily.tumblr.com/post/167647671515/day-18-body-swap) on tumblr. This fic was proofread before being posted here but is otherwise unchanged.
> 
> Day eighteen: bodyswap. Avengers Academy because I felt like that’s the kind of thing that would happen in AvAc land all the time. This turned out more Pepper/Tony than anything else, but oh well.

Everything is all Loki’s fault. Or Amora’s. It’s definitely one of them, but Tony’s not currently in a position to figure it out yet.

He sees them outside Club A, which isn’t unusual. They’re arguing about something, which also isn’t unusual, and Tony ignores them, knowing better than to get involved with Asgardian squabbles. His phone rings and he picks it up, saying hi to Rhodey on the other end, and the next thing he knows he’s got a face full of green glitter. When he turns around to yell at Loki and Amora to cut it out, they aren’t there. Because he’s not outside Club A.

Because he’s not himself at all, if the mirror he’s staring at in the Power Gym is accurate at all.

“Holy shit,” he says into the phone he’s still holding, though he supposes it’s actually Rhodey’s phone.

“Tony?” his own voice says back, and boy is that weird to hear. “What just happened?”

“Are Loki and Enchantress still over there?” he asks, startling himself slightly at the sound of Rhodey’s voice coming from ‘his’ mouth.

There’s a pause, then Rhodey answers, “I don’t see them.”

Tony groans and rubs a hand over his face. Rhodey’s face. He has no idea how to think about all this. A few people in the gym are starting to give him funny looks. “Great! One of them hit me with some magic junk and this happened.”

“Look, let’s meet up on the quad in ten,” Rhodey says, sounding way more calm than Tony feels right now. “And don’t do anything embarrassing!”

“Totally,” Tony assures him, insincere, and hangs up. Then he winks at Misty Knight over on the treadmill, who rolls her eyes but smiles at the gesture. Huh, interesting. Misty never gives him the time of day normally.

Pondering this over as he packs up Rhodey’s gym bag and heads out, he wonders if this mishap could be worked out to his advantage. Or if he could at least pull off a good prank on Rhodey.

* * *

Seeing himself in person is really weird. He grins as he sees himself―Rhodey―approach, and he waves as he says loudly,

“What’s up, handsome?”

“Not much, stud,” Rhodey replies just as loudly, and then they both break out into laughter.

“Okay, seriously, what the hell?” Rhodey says when they catch their breath, gesturing between them. “This is super weird. I feel all weak and short, you need to hit the gym more.”

“The gym’s not going to make me taller,” Tony retorts, pouting, and Rhodey leans back.

“Wow, that’s not a good look for me. Stop frowning like that.”

Tony just pouts harder.

“Okay, sorry, you’re not short!” Rhodey says hastily. “Can we please focus on changing back? We need to find Loki or Enchantress and get them to fix this.”

“I don’t know, I’m having a pretty good time as you…” Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest. It feels weird not having the arc reactor in his chest, and he wonders how Rhodey is dealing with it. “Did you know Misty might be into you?”

“We’re just friends,” Rhodey sighs, standing with his hands on his hips. “And I told you not to do anything embarrassing. It’s unfair because I can’t embarrass you, everything you do yourself is embarrassing.”

“That’s not true! Is it?” He turns to look at a couple people passing by and asks, “Hey, is Tony generally embarrassing?”

They turn to look at Rhodey, then nod and keep walking. Rhodey goes “Ha!” very softly.

“Whatever,” Tony scoffs. “You go look for the annoying magic twins. I’m going to do you a favor and see how many girls are actually secretly into you.”

“Tony, don’t you dare!” Rhodey shouts, but Tony’s already running away.

* * *

So it turns out Rhodey’s way more popular than Tony thought. Which isn’t a surprise, because Rhodey’s awesome, Tony would be the first to agree. But more popular than  _him_? Unfair.

“Hey James,” Nico says as she waves to him, walking through the park with Singularity beside her. He waves back, and Singularity makes a little heart shape with her hands before Nico pulls her away. Even the sentient galaxy loves Rhodey more than him!

Tony sighs and sits down on one of the stone benches by the fountain. At least he’ll have good news to report to Rhodey when he gets back to him.

“Rhodey? Is everything okay?”

Tony looks up, startled, to see Pepper approaching him, and nearly jumps to his feet. She’s the one girl he hadn’t tried to talk to today, because he really doesn’t think his heart could take it if she liked Rhodey more than him.

“I’m fine!” he says quickly, clearing his throat, and tries to act more Rhodey-like. “It’s cool. Want to sit down?”

Pepper gives him a suspicious look, but she sits besides him on the bench. “Have you seen Tony today? He was supposed to meet me for lunch.”

Crap! He totally forgot to tell Rhodey to meet with her in his stead. Now she probably thinks he’s a huge jerk.

“Uh, yeah, Tony’s been busy. Really important stuff. He’s super sorry for bailing.”

Pepper frowns, but she seems to take his word for it. “Okay, I’m sure he’ll find me later to apologize.”

Aw, that’s sweet she thinks he’d apologize in person. Which…he should probably do. Once he and Rhodey switch back.

“Usually he texts me if he has to cancel,” she says, clasping her hands in her lap. “Do you think he’s mad at me or something?”

“What? No way. He probably just forgot. You know how he gets when he has a project.” Or a once in a lifetime opportunity to pretend to be Rhodey.

Pepper nods, giving him a smile. “You’re right, I’m just worrying over nothing. Tell him to call me if you see him, okay?”

“Of course,” he assures her, waving as she gets up and leaves. As soon as she’s out of sight, he pulls out his―Rhodey’s―phone and hastily dials Rhodey’s―his―number.

Rhodey picks up on the first ring. “Tired of embarrassing me yet?”

“Honestly, you have nothing to be embarrassed about, everyone loves you,” Tony says quickly. “More importantly, you have to text Pepper from my phone and apologize for missing lunch.”

Rhodey sighs but he says, “Fine, I’ll do that if you go find Loki or Enchantress. I’ve been looking for them for the past hour and they’ve vanished.”

“I will, I promise! Thank you, seriously.”

“Anytime, buddy.”

* * *

Reassured that Pepper wasn’t going to be horribly mad at him, Tony does as promised and tracks down the two troublemakers who got them into this mess in the first place. Apparently the reason Rhodey couldn’t find them was because they were hiding in Stark Tower’s hot tub the whole time.

Amora scoffs and rolls her eyes when he explains what they did. “I was trying to turn Loki into a frog. Who knows why it swapped you and Rhodes. Maybe Rhodes having to suffer your body was just as bad as being a frog.”

Tony scowls at her. “Can you turn us back or what?”

“Maybe for a price…”

“You’re in my hot tub!”

“Fine,” she relents, frowning, but another puff of green glitter hits him in the face before he can say anything else about it.

And he finds himself back in his own body, sitting at a picnic table in the park with Pepper.

“Tony?” she says, waving her hand in front of his face. She seems to be waiting for some sort of answer from him, but he has no idea what.

“Uhhh.”

“Are you okay? I was asking about lunch.”

Argh, he’s going to kill Rhodey! He was supposed to apologize via text!

“Yeah, I’m really sorry about skipping―”

She shakes her head. “No, you already said that. I meant asking about lunch tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah, sure, we could reschedule. That’d be great.”

“Are you sure you’re okay, Tony?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Tony asks hesitantly. He’s clearly missing part of the conversation but it would be too suspicious if he asked.

Pepper, to his surprise, flushes slightly. “If you’re not interested, you don’t have to pretend―”

“No, I’m super interested! I just, uh, zoned out there a moment. What am I interested in?”

Pepper huffs and stands, crossing her arms over her chest. “Seriously, Tony, I don’t know why you think it’s funny to jerk me around like this but―”

“It was Rhodey! You were talking to Rhodey.”

She stops and stares at him like he’d grown another head. “What?”

“Enchantress accidentally bodyswapped us. I literally just got her to turn us back.”

“Anthony Stark, that is so…unfortunately plausible for this place.” She sighs, giving him an apologetic look. “So Rhodey was the one saying all those sweet things?”

“Uh, yes,” he says, puzzled.

She sits back down at the table, looking thoughtful. “He said you were sorry about missing lunch and that he’d―well, you would―like to take me out on a date to make it up. So I asked about lunch tomorrow.”

Okay, maybe he’ll hug Rhodey instead of killing him. Even though he’s still kind of mad at Rhodey for tricking him.

“Do you still want to?” he asks. “Go on a date to make it up.”

“Apparently I should be going on one with Rhodey,” she says with a giggle.

“He is pretty cool,” Tony agrees, only frowning a little. “Apparently everyone on campus loves him.”

Pepper reaches across the table and takes his hand. “You’re pretty cool too. And I’d love to go out to lunch with you, if  _you_  actually want to.”

Tony grins so wide it kind of feels like his face can’t contain it. “I really actually want to.”

Rhodey texts him a series of emoji a few minutes later (hamburger, red heart, yellow heart, red heart, question mark) and Tony rolls his eyes, but he brings a bag of hamburgers back to the dorm with him when they meet up that evening as a thank you.


End file.
